Monday, August 23, 2010

The Census In A Table

Updated at 4:42 PDT

In researching the article on the floods in Pakistan, I happened upon the chart at the U.S. Census' website of changes to the population and the distribution of U.S. Representatives thanks to the recent census.

In a nutshell, the states that are losing representation are (with the number of U.S. Representatives they're losing in parentheses):

Illinois (1)

Iowa (1)

Louisiana (1)

Massachusetts (1)

Michigan (1)

New Jersey (1)

New York (1)

Ohio (2)

Pennsylvania (1)

Those gaining seats are (gains in parentheses):

Arizona (1)

Florida (1)

Georgia (1)

Nevada (1)

South Carolina (1)

Texas (3)

Utah (1)

Washington (1)

In short, our population is shifting from the Northeast and the Rust Belt to other parts of the country. The two most notable changes are Ohio's loss of two representatives, and Texas' gain of three.

It might seem that this represents a shift toward more conservatism in America, since most of the states that lost representatives are more progressive, and those that gained mostly aren't. Other than Texas, though, I think this can be viewed as further urbanization of America. Urban populations tend to be liberal, because they require more government than rural populations. At least, that's been the trend. Arizona, New Mexico, and Florida have shown tendencies in that direction. While I wouldn't count on Utah becoming a progressive nirvana anytime soon, the trend isn't entirely the bad news it might first appear.

[More observations are in the second update, below.]

Here's the entire table, which I lifted lock, stock, and HTML from the U.S. Census site:

Population

Electors

House Seats

State

2010

Change

2000

201220162020

Change

20042008

201220162020

Change

20042008

Alabama

4,708,708

+247,578

4,461,130

9

9

7

7

Alaska

698,473

+69,540

628,933

3

3

1

1

Arizona

6,595,778

+1,455,095

5,140,683

11

+1

10

9

+1

8

Arkansas

2,889,450

+209,717

2,679,733

6

6

4

4

California

36,961,664

+3,030,866

33,930,798

55

55

53

53

Colorado

5,024,748

+712,866

4,311,882

9

9

7

7

Connecticut

3,518,288

+108,753

3,409,535

7

7

5

5

Delaware

885,122

+100,054

785,068

3

3

1

1

District of Columbia

3

3

Florida

18,537,969

+2,509,079

16,028,890

28

+1

27

26

+1

25

Georgia

9,829,211

+1,622,236

8,206,975

16

+1

15

14

+1

13

Hawaii

1,295,178

+78,536

1,216,642

4

4

2

2

Idaho

1,545,801

+248,527

1,297,274

4

4

2

2

Illinois

12,910,409

+471,367

12,439,042

20

-1

21

18

-1

19

Indiana

6,423,113

+332,331

6,090,782

11

11

9

9

Iowa

3,007,856

+75,933

2,931,923

6

-1

7

4

-1

5

Kansas

2,818,747

+124,923

2,693,824

6

6

4

4

Kentucky

4,314,113

+264,682

4,049,431

8

8

6

6

Louisiana

4,492,076

+11,805

4,480,271

8

-1

9

6

-1

7

Maine

1,318,301

+40,570

1,277,731

4

4

2

2

Maryland

5,699,478

+391,592

5,307,886

10

10

8

8

Massachusetts

6,593,587

+238,019

6,355,568

11

-1

12

9

-1

10

Michigan

9,969,727

+13,898

9,955,829

16

-1

17

14

-1

15

Minnesota

5,266,214

+340,544

4,925,670

10

10

8

8

Mississippi

2,951,996

+99,069

2,852,927

6

6

4

4

Missouri

5,987,580

+381,320

5,606,260

11

11

9

9

Montana

974,989

+69,673

905,316

3

3

1

1

Nebraska

1,796,619

+81,250

1,715,369

5

5

3

3

Nevada

2,643,085

+641,053

2,002,032

6

+1

5

4

+1

3

New Hampshire

1,324,575

+86,160

1,238,415

4

4

2

2

New Jersey

8,707,739

+283,385

8,424,354

14

-1

15

12

-1

13

New Mexico

2,009,671

+185,850

1,823,821

5

5

3

3

New York

19,541,453

+536,480

19,004,973

30

-1

31

28

-1

29

North Carolina

9,380,884

+1,313,211

8,067,673

15

15

13

13

North Dakota

646,844

+3,088

643,756

3

3

1

1

Ohio

11,542,645

+168,105

11,374,540

18

-2

20

16

-2

18

Oklahoma

3,687,050

+228,231

3,458,819

7

7

5

5

Oregon

3,825,657

+397,114

3,428,543

7

7

5

5

Pennsylvania

12,604,767

+304,097

12,300,670

20

-1

21

18

-1

19

Rhode Island

1,053,209

+3,547

1,049,662

4

4

2

2

South Carolina

4,561,242

+536,181

4,025,061

9

+1

8

7

+1

6

South Dakota

812,383

+55,509

756,874

3

3

1

1

Tennessee

6,296,254

+596,217

5,700,037

11

11

9

9

Texas

24,782,302

+3,878,308

20,903,994

37

+3

34

35

+3

32

Utah

2,784,572

+547,858

2,236,714

6

+1

5

4

+1

3

Vermont

621,760

+11,870

609,890

3

3

1

1

Virginia

7,882,590

+781,888

7,100,702

13

13

11

11

Washington

6,664,195

+755,511

5,908,684

12

+1

11

10

+1

9

West Virginia

1,819,777

+6,700

1,813,077

5

5

3

3

Wisconsin

5,654,774

+283,564

5,371,210

10

10

8

8

Wyoming

544,270

+48,966

495,304

3

3

1

1

Totals

306,406,893

+24,982,716

281,424,177

538

538

435

435

Apologies for the fact that not all of the table's columns are appearing in this article. That's because this particular page format is limited to about 550 pixels across. That makes it all but impossible to get a wide table like this in it. If you set the font size of your browser to 12 pixels, you should be able to see what I'm talking about, and setting it to 10 pixels should show the whole thing.

Of course, you might not be able to read it.

UPDATE: For you Posix users, there's a utility called kmag that may help. Set the pixel size on your browser to 10, then you can use kmag to magnify the table.

UPDATE 2: Back to the subject matter ...

A couple of other interesting observations, just looking at the “Change” column:

- California gained over 3 million people, yet didn’t pick up another representative. Texas picked up 3.9 million, and picked up three.

- No states lost population this time. Going from memory, I think Wyoming and North Dakota lost population, according to the 2000 census relative to 1990.

- 306 million people divided by 435 reps averages out to 703,000 people per legislative district. California gained enough population for four congressional districts, yet gained none. New York gained 536k, nearly enough for one district, but lost a district.

- Every state gets at least one rep, whether it has 703,000 people or not. By my count, four states have fewer people than this (Alaska is just short at 698k).

The state’s population relative to the rest of the country is what counts, of course, and while California’s population increased quite a bit, it wasn’t enough to change its proportion of the country’s population.

UPDATE 3: Thanks to a tip from George.W in comments, I was able to create an Open Office spreadsheet of this table. I also exported it into Excel '97 format (XLS), but I can't vouch for the quality. I don't have Excel.

Anyone desiring a copy, I'll be happy to e-mail either version to you.

I don't think there are more than a handful of "real Americans" in the whole country, frankly. If you eliminate from consideration those who are ethnic or religious minorities, gay or lesbian, or progressive (liberal, green, libertarian, whatever), then you're left with maybe a third of that 28 percent.

Reminds me of an old Babylon 5 show. It was about an automated weapon that was programmed to kill anyone who wasn't a "true" version of whatever this alien was. Needless to say, no one qualified, and by the time Our Heroes discover it, the only thing left is the weapon.

And, yes, cutting had pasting the table right into that first cell worked for me, too. That included making the bold parts bold. It didn't format the cells to show commas, but that's pretty minor. I just set the "totals" cells to add up the columns, and instant spreadsheet.